Everybody Loved Them; I Cringed

Now that's interesting, Light. That whole section was Oaxaca. Where did you find the list? I went in and looked for "locations..." though the UPS guy interrupted (yes!! my new speakers are here!!)... Many thanks for the elucidation...

I've never been able to watch more than about 5 minutes of Eyes, Mac, even when it turned up on the movie channels. You can take Vanilla Sky, too, though the original movie is delicious/horrible. Cruise is interesting. He walked away (IMO) with Rainman. Hoffman was fun to watch but Cruise was doing all the heavy lifting. So I know he can do it. But he doesn't. There's a whole list of terrific actors who've lost it as they've become "stars."

Are we ruining Roberta's thread by edging away from the original intention?

Lukewarm on "Vanilla Sky" -- not one I'm likely to return to. However, EWS I've seen many times over and have warmed up to the film even though I think casting these two well known stars who had a relationship was still a mistake in my estimation (and strictly for box office). Makes one wonder because of the theme of the film if this is what ended their marriage.

I did post a list of what the IMDb posters consider the greatest films to take aim at but no takers. I have read some pretty heavy handed and poorly written stabs at panning the two LOTR films. One really has to consider the source. I have friends I can trust if a film is worth seeing but just chatters on line is hardly where I would go to find opinions.
With LOTR, it's really one lengthy film (likely over 15 hours when the extended version of "The Return of the King" comes out next year and I don't think they'll hold off as long on releasing it).
I've been able to see some priveleged scenes of the film, especially in the final battle at Minas Tirath and all I can think of to say is AWESOME!

That's right, Tom Cruise did a great job in Rainman -- I always assumed it was because Dustin Hoffman was there & made it easy for him. I am a Hoffman fan! Loved, loved his extra stuff on The Kid Stays in the Picture. I think I may have to buy that DVD.

This could be an idea for a whole new thread anyway... but it doesn't seem so horribly tangential to me, since the topography disparity made you cringe, Tartarin. I love knowing the locations, and enjoyed your spanish hollywood memories.

But you're a landscape freak yourself, Osso, no?! When you see the WRONG tree in the WRONG place, doesn't it irritate you?

Anyway, conversations about films are always interesting.

If the LOTR wasn't so violent, I would love it more. I could barely take the fights in the second one, they were so graphic & frightening. On the other hand I am trying to get Mr.P to let me decorate our house in Middle Earth Elf. And Oh, to go to NZ to visit the sets! I think I'd be happier if the same group would do The Hobbit. I haven't read it in years but remember it as being more peaceful in comparison.

I'm a total scape freak, urban and country, and a portion of why I ever read fiction or see movies is to absorb a sense of place.

Oh -- now I see what "LOTR" is. God, I felt so dumb, so out of touch, so o-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-l-l-d-d-d-d-d.

It's actually "Lawrence of the Ringwraiths" where Peter O'Toole is miscast as an Orc.

Piffka -- Tokien wrote "The Hobbit" for children (and actually the animated version of it is quite good) and LOTR for adults -- it was likely the most read book in college. You'd likely find a copy around any dormroom -- especially at Cal Tech.

Me too, Osso. That's why I can watch grass-grow, paint-dry movies. Where I like speed is in movies with kids on skateboards!! Envy guides me to them...

Piffka -- Tokien wrote "The Hobbit" for children (and actually the animated version of it is quite good) and LOTR for adults -- it was likely the most read book in college. You'd likely find a copy around any dormroom -- especially at Cal Tech.

There's nothing on the top ten list of IMDb that I hate. I was actually impressed that so many fantasy and science fiction movies were at the top. Of course, "Casablanca" is there -- the epitome of period romance stories with a good dose of mystery and suspense thrown in.

California isn't Texas, and Toronto is not New York. It's one thing to show a building or two. They can be anywhere. But whole exterior shots? Mistake. I may not know where it is, but I know where it isn't. I'm specifically thinking of This Park Is Mine. A C movie with Tommy Lee Jones. That was NOT Central Park! I find this kind of thing a distraction. It takes my mind off the film. Sometimes it doesn't matter, and sometimes it's an intrusion.

Have to admit to positively loving the war scenes in LOTR 2. Absolutely f***ing amazing.

I used to never be much into action movies, but after LOTR 2 I came outa the cinema, eyes aglow, and blurted out to Anastasia that damn, they make war look good! Its like, you're almost ready to go join the fight and save the earth yourself. Glorious, in terms of filmmaking.

The cool thing about the LOTR films is that they're still pretty good when they're not fighting, too, tho - unlike, say, The Matrix 2. But it's a far cry from the books, though. The books were much more dreamy, fairy-tale like in atmosphere. Well, the first LOTR movie was also still a little more like that.



Funny you should say that! I was so surprised to go to Zagreb, Croatia, and see that one of the most laid-back student pubs there is named after the Tolkien books. I'm all - students? I read those three books when I was ... err ... eleven! We were holidaying in Brittany, the first time around ... that was in 1983. I thought they were pretty cool children books! I was mesmerised by that "living" forest, with the walking trees, first mysterious & intimidating, then turning out to be kind ... and the scenes in the swamp with Gollem, it was so scary/exciting ...

That holiday we all read all three of the books (we were five, then, my mother, my sister and me, my mother's friend and her son, who was my best friend). So we had to, like, rotate the books - so none of us read them in order ;-). (That's OK though, with these books, they each stand alone too). I still have one part, my sister has one part, and the third part? My mother used to have it, dunno where it went.

But I've reread the part I have much later, when I was a student, when I was ill, and I was kinda underwhelmed. I mean, I thought it was cute, a good "being-ill" read. But a cult item for students? That was hard to wrap my thoughts around, there in Zagreb ...

The Rennaisance Fair in Southern California was an annual showcase for LOTR characters. The most popular? Tom Bombadil (and he was left out of the film, admitedly a sub-plot that had little to do with the forward momentum of the story but a charming whimsy). My first experience with reading the books was checking them out of the LA Public Library when I would go to meetings of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. I was attending UCLA at the time but many of my friends were Cal Tech students (who I'd go out to the Mohave Desert and shoot off rockets with the Pacific Rocket Society).

Nimh, Mr.P loved those fighting scenes as well. I assume it has something to do with being male.

I am a strange duck in that I am not at all attracted to fantasy or science fiction, leaving me roaming alone in a strange uninhabited movie world. But, I choose movies knowing this, and can't complain, in relation to the Thread Topic, that I am ever cringing about this kind of content.

ossobuco,
how great to hear there is another strange duck who is "not at all attracted.....to science fiction." My friends sincerely believe I am not a complete person.

Most, a lot of sci-fi movies suffer from being monotonous. 1. Going on in the same tone without variation. 2. tiresome sameness, weariness because
unvarying.

Monotony is not only a result of dullness or inactivity.
It can also be caused by unremittant frenzied, fast pace, louder to loudest sound, etc.

I think Moulin Rouge suffered from thiis kind of monotony.

LW, I hadn't realized that you posted the list expecting someone to comment on the films therein. I haven't seen any of the the LOTR movies. Read the books, though. And I haven't seen Schindler's List and never will.

None of the movies on the list made me cringe, but one was a disappointment. I'll say it and then duck. Casablanca. Granted, I'm not a fan of romantic films, otherwise known as "women's movies." But I had such enormously high expectations of this movie that I doubt that anything could have lived up to them. Nevertheless, I remember thinking at the end of the movie, "That's it?!"

Yes, there were some wonderful moments. Good acting. But it left me feeling eh.

Still ducking.